A Grapple A Day...

This column, my gentle readers, will introduce you to
a prime example of how a fixation with a favourite
piece of equipment can showcase extreme Cluelessness,
as related by an eye witness. You have been warned.
His name was Creeping Death. A cybernetic ninja death
machine. Emotionless. Ruthless. Dangerous. And
those were his good qualities.

Now as it happened, one of the PCs lived in an
abandoned high-rise, and liked to drive his motorcycle
up the eight flights of stairs up to his apartment
(and that's a whole other story in itself). Unable to
keep up with the speed at which the other character
was traveling up the stairs, and not wanting to look
'un-cool', Creeping Death was hit by a sudden idea...

CD: 'I stop running up the stairs, there's no way I
can keep up with him'
GM: 'Right. So what are you going to do?'
CD: 'Well, I reach into my longcoat and pull out my
grapple gun' (other players sigh in the background)
'I aim at the roof in the middle of the stairwell and
fire'

<<< miscellaneous dice rolls >>>

GM: 'Okay, you've got the grapple line leading up to
the roof. What are you going to do now?'
CD: <grins smugly> 'I'm going to hold it tightly and
step out into the middle of the stairwell, hitting the
self-wind as I do so'
GM: <winces, realizing that CD has seen one too many
episodes of Batman> 'You realize that you are already
three floors up?'
CD: 'Yep'
GM: 'You step out into the area clutching tightly to
the grapplegun, and <more dice rolls> manage to hit
the self wind. A dull whine comes from the engine,
but you begin to rise slowly up the cable'
CD: <obviously pleased with the cool factor of not
being the last one to the top of the stairs> 'I sit
back and enjoy the ride. At this rate, I'll be up
there before him.'
GM: 'There's a sudden grinding noise from the grapple
gun and then you begin to descent at a very rapid
rate. Cable unspools from the back of the winder
faster and faster, and before you can act, you hit the
ground. <resistance rolls, etc.>. You lie on the
broken-tiled floor of the ground level of the
building, the self-wind on your grapple gun smokes
slightly'.
CD: 'Okay, I start running up the stairs. I can
still come equal with him - I'm a ninja, doncha know'.

After yet another episode in which CD is electrocuted
while trying to use his grapple gun to cross a high
voltage electric fence, we now join our hero as he
attempts a bit of subtlety.

Creeping Death's grapple gun came in handy once again
when he was called upon to quietly assassinate a Corp.
Exec. The corper always worked late on Friday nights,
and after finding that his house was virtually
unguarded during the night decided that the best place
to take him out would be during business hours on a
Wednesday (???). His plan, if you could call it that,
was to get into the office building next door, use his
sniper rifle to shatter a window, use his grapple gun
to swing down through said window, blow away the
corper, then use his grapple gun to swing to safety.

After readying his gear, and spending several hours
trying to get past security in the building next door,
CD managed to make it to the correct floor. After
figuring out how to open the window on the 23rd floor
of a skyscraper (namely by shooting it repeatedly with
a pistol), CD proceeded to shoot out a likely looking
window on his target building and then, after
attaching the grapple gun to his belt and firing it at
an appropriate spot, jumped out the window.

After numerous skill tests, CD managed to swing in
through the window (roughly five minutes after he'd
begun shooting). He smashed through the remnants of
the window (cutting himself badly in the process), and
suddenly it occurred to him that the guards might have
been alerted, and declared that he was going to,
immediately upon landing, open up with his submachine
gun. Landing on the shards of glass and rolling over
the glass to gain his feet and go for his gun, he
heard someone yelling at him to freeze. Ignoring
them, CD was promptly shot as he was straightening up
by several panicking security guards, whose hail of
bullets caused enough knockback to send CD flying back
OUT the window. 23 floors up. 'Nuff said.

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